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Continuing the “Close to Home” series’ tradition of bringing the best of LA to Universal Citywalk, Audible Mainframe will be hitting the 5 Towers concert venue tonight. This socially conscious, live hip-hop band has been dubbed “the faces and souls of this generation,” and over the course of the group’s eight-year history, they’ve played with everyone from LMFAO to Common. No doubt they will have the crowd going crazy tonight, and the best part of the whole deal? It’s free!

LA Music Blog had a chance to talk to Audible Mainframe about their history on the east coast, their show tonight at Citywalk, and their new single, “Ready to Fly.”

For our readers who might have not heard of Audible Mainframe yet, can you give us a quick background on the band?

Well, we started out in Boston in 2003 as students attending various colleges around the city. We all met through friends of friends and started playing/recording music in the Northeastern University recording studio (where Johnny, Dave Miller, and Special Blend were attending school).

A year later Emerson College’s student-run record label, Emerson Records, selected us as the band they wanted to release an album with. They provided us with the studio, website, and everything else associated with putting out a record. With only 3 months to write and record a full album, we put out our first record, Framework, in May 2004, and it debuted at #14 on the CMJ charts (College Music Journal).

Two years later, our status in Boston had grown significantly to the point where we were selling-out a lot of the better music venues in the city. It was at that time we decided we needed a change of scenery…not too mention we were sick of scraping our windshields and shoveling snow for the majority of the year. In late 2006 we relocated to LA and have been hard at work building our name on the west coast ever since.

How would you describe the change/development of the band since your formation in 2003?

The foundation of the band (Expo, Johnny, Lethal D, and Dave Miller) has been together since 2003. When we moved out here from Boston, we got a house together in Long Beach, where we’ve been living, rehearsing, and recording for the last 4 years.

Since starting the band in 2003, we’ve gone through about 9 bass players, 3 DJs, and a sax player. We met Walt, our current bassist, a few years and a few bass players after landing in Cali. Around the same time our current DJ and old homie from Boston, Special Blend, relocated to LA where we joined forces.

It may sound crazy but it’s almost as if all those lineup changes over the years have led us to this point, and now we have our strongest lineup ever. Everything happens for a reason.

AMF is known for blending several genres seamlessly. Who or what do you pull influences from when writing music?

When you have six people in a band, who all come from different places and different backgrounds, everyone brings their own musical tastes to the table. What we try to do is find where these various musical tastes overlap to find some common ground. That’s why we’re able to touch on so many types of genres without it coming off as fake or forced—it’s just who we are.

Is there a new album in the works?

We feel that with the way the music industry is changing, we have to constantly keep our fans engaged. Instead of releasing an album every few years, we’re working on a constant flow of content and giving most of it away for free. That way you keep fans coming back instead of waiting for the next album to drop.

We released our newest single “Ready To Fly” this past Monday as a free download. The official video for it will be out by the end of August, and we plan to immediately follow that up with another single and video. For now, go check out “Ready To Fly” and download it for FREE.

“Ready To Fly” is the perfect summer jam. We wanna make sure that everything we release is consistently dope and is always better than the last thing that we did. We do it for the brain that you shake your rump with.

Considering you have been writing and recording music for 8 years now, how has the process of writing music changed?

Needless to say you’re gonna write music differently in Year 8 than in Year 1. We feel like we’re a lot better at it now and that we’ve found our true sound. We write songs based off of our environment and what’s going on in our lives, so moving from cold Boston to sunny Southern California has also had an effect on the writing process.

You guys are playing the “Close to Home” series at Citywalk July 29th. How did you get involved with the series?

We’ve been fortunate to work with 98.7 over the last few years, playing various events that they’ve been involved with. Julie and everyone else at the station have always looked out for us and supported our movement. They hit us up saying that we were one of the favorite local bands and wanted to help us out by featuring us as one of their “Close To Home” showcase bands.

What does it mean to the band to be involved with 98.7 and Citywalk for this series?

A lot of times in this industry people will tell you that they wanna help you out, they get you worked up and excited, but there’s always a catch at the end. What’s cool about this is that there is no catch. 98.7 is a genuine supporter of local bands, and this concert series is proof of that. We are honored to have been selected, and we’re excited to rock the 5 Towers stage at Citywalk.

Can your fans that make it out to the show expect to hear any new tracks?

We always try to keep our sets fresh and energetic and make sure that anyone who comes out to see us is guaranteed to see or experience something that they didn’t get at any other show of ours. Did we mention that we released a new song this week called “Ready To Fly” and that you can download it for FREE?

What else does the group have planned for 2011?

We really wanna get on the road this year. People are always hitting us up from every corner of the map asking us to play a show in their town. We always tell them we’re working on it, and we want to make good on that promise. Except for you Trenton, NJ…you’re assed out.